The Long Way Down: The 98th Hunger Games
by TheFisher
Summary: After a long and brutal war, the Hunger Games are back. 23 children will die, for very little reason. If the Gamemakers can promise anything, they can promise that these children won't die well. *SYOT CLOSED*
1. Ain't No Rest for the Wicked

**Hey everybody, I'm an old SYOT writer with a new account, and I decided for the heck of it that I'd give another one of these bad boys a shot over the summer. I don't know if anybody's even still into SYOTs, but if you are, it'd be awesome if you'd submit! Or not, it's up to you. Whatever you decide, here's an introductory chapter to get the ball rolling. More info will be at the bottom author's note. Have a good one!**

* * *

 _ **Prologue, Part One**_

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 **Celeukos "Cell" Callas, 38**

 **Peacekeeper, District Five**

"Orders just came in," says Matrix, sliding into place beside me. "We're to give this man the full package. Interrogation, intimidation. Terror tactics, no doubt." She rubs her gloved hands together. "They think he's the one behind the graffiti."

I crush my cigarette between my thumb and forefinger. The heat is almost painful. "Name?"

"Vector Vasquez," she says.

"Shit," I say.

She looks at me sideways. "You know him," she says. It is not a question.

I lean against the lamppost until it digs into the spot between my shoulderblades that is impossible to reach. "Knew him," I tell her, scanning the street, fiddling with a button on my uniform. "Used to be neighbors. Guy was always a wackjob." Ash drips from my fingertips.

Matrix sucks her bottom lip between her teeth. "We can switch out on this one."

I jerk away from the lamppost; dig the sole of my boot into the concrete. "Nah. It was a long time ago." I scratch at the stubble on my chin. I should shave. "He probably doesn't remember me."

The amber light from above glows warmly on her cheekbones. "If you say so," says Matrix. "I'll allow it, Cell, but I'm not sure I like it." She glances to her right, where Kidd is slouched on the ground against the base of the lamppost in what is surely an attempt to chastise or humiliate us. "What do you think, Kidd?" she says, to the back of Kidd's head. "Should we switch out? Cell used to know this man."

Kidd lets her head swing slowly back, auburn bangs in disarray over her sweating forehead, and she says, "If he _can't handle it,_ we can switch out." Her voice is low and disrespectful. She makes eye contact with me and doesn't look away for long seconds. She is limp and dangerous.

"I can handle it," I tell the air in between them. "It doesn't matter to me. It's a job."

Matrix presses her hands against her thighs and nods. "That's settled, then," she says. "Come on, Kidd." It's not a direct order, not really, but I can see the corners of Kidd's mouth twitching, her eyes adopting that familiar uncanny bulge. She clambers to her feet, the moment passes, she is herself again. As she presses the heel of her palm against her temple she takes a moment to glare flatly at Matrix, who rears back when she realizes the mistake. "I apologize, Kidd," says Matrix, "I forgot that your conditioning might construe that as an order. My mistake."

Kidd's nostrils flare. "Every word out of your mouth is an order," she says, in her measured way. "As my handler I figured that was something you'd remember."

"Cool it, Kidd," I snap, waving a hand in her direction. "It's not Matrix's fault that you betrayed your country."

Her eyes are grey and cold. "No, of course not," she says. "That was my choice." Again she forces the heel of her palm against her temple. "If it makes you any _happier,"_ she continues, "I more than paid for that decision."

Matrix clears her throat. "Shall we go on?" she says, glancing between me and Kidd. "The sun's setting."

"Sure," I tell her, and fall into step at her side. Kidd trails behind us, for all the world like an insolent child dragging its feet. In moments like these it's almost possible to forget what's been done to her, how they've scooped out her free will and replaced it with slavish, unconscious devotion to Matrix's every word. It is the kind of responsibility that only a person like Matrix might deserve, handling this person, this Kidd, this Smiler.

Smiler. It's an ugly name for these traitors, conditioned and shackled as they are. But it serves. And Smilers, at the very least, are much more useful than the Avoxes of antiquity.

I grunt, shake the hair out of my eyes, and fumble in a pocket of my uniform for a cigarette. My grasping fingers rasp up against unyielding cloth; I'm out. "Figures," I mumble.

We walk in silence. My footfalls feel unwieldy in my stiff new boots; the socks on my feet are swollen with sweat. Sunset streaks over District Five and cuts at our eyes with sharp orange aggression. I blink away tears and stare down the long thoroughfare at the people emerging from the electric plants, the people with their bent backs and dirty clothes and furtive glances. There is talk, but it is muted, and when we get close enough it dies away completely. Perhaps that's for the best.

I turn a corner and I am a child again. It feels like a punch in the gut. I slow to a stop and squint down at the block I grew up on, stare at the house where I was born and molded. Matrix pauses at my side and reaches for my arm before seemingly reconsidering and pulling away. "This is your old home," she guesses instead. "It's… it's nice, Cell."

"Nice is a word for it," I say. The houses are tightly-packed and dilapidated, with sloped crumbling roofs and windows so glass-thick that they are opaque. I realize, with a stab of disorientation, that I am not quite sure which one of them is mine, so strong is the similarity between them. _Third from the right,_ I remember, and am relieved.

"He's in the seventh from the left." I find myself pointing at the offending house, with its dusty windows and crumbling doorframe. "He used to bring extra dough to my mother sometimes when he could," I add to myself, under my breath. "Not a bad man."

"Do you want Kidd to take point?" asks Matrix, staring ahead with the clinical focus of a bird of prey.

I toss my head. "No," I tell them, stepping forward. My uniform strains around me as I crack my knuckles. Each one is an illicit thrill. _If you keep that up your hands will stop working someday,_ my mother warned in my childhood. I would crack them all the same. My hands still work fine.

I pause in front of the door, shift my weight, and drive the sole of my boot into the center. The door crumples like foil and I drop into a crouch, scanning the room beyond. I remember the dust, the old table in the corner, the couch with the shape and consistency of a handful of congealed milk. The room is plagued by shadow and the swirling dust is almost oppressive, but I can see him at the table, straightening out of a slump, both hands flat at his sides. He peers at me, blinks once or twice, and moves to stand, saying "Celeukos? Could that be you?" as he does.

Without much hesitation I swing my revolver from its holster and drop to one knee. "Vector Vasquez," I say, although I don't need the confirmation. "Get on the ground."

He stands for a moment; then he falls. As I get to my feet Kidd and Matrix file into the room through the ruined door, each stirring up swirls and waterfalls of dust as they do. Matrix coughs into her hand, Kidd covers her mouth and nose with the crook of her elbow, and both squint through the dust at the man facedown on the floor.

"Vector Vasquez," says Matrix, recovering from her short coughing fit, "We came here on suspicion of your propagation of illicit materials and symbols in the form of graffiti. To this end we intend on determining whether or not these suspicions are based in truth." She jerks her head, and Kidd and I respond to the unspoken command and gather up Vector's arms, hauling him to his feet.

He hangs between us on limp feet. He is not particularly heavy. At once he cranes his head towards me, fights to meet my eyes. "Celeukos," he says, "A Peacekeeper, you can't have done, your poor mother wou—"

Kidd grabs a fistful of his hair, tugs his head back until his bare trembling neck is exposed. "That's enough," she says. Her voice lacks any particular venom. Kidd might have been conditioned for her job, but no one conditioned her to enjoy it. Whether that was a mercy or a cruelty depends entirely on her own perception of the matter. I've never asked.

"You know what to do, Kidd," says Matrix, and as she nods I release Vector's arm and pull myself away from him. The sound of my feet against the cobbled floor reminds me of the sound of my father's heavy footfalls, before he was gone. Everything my childhood, all gone. He was one of the first to go.

I push past his rickety table and scan the kitchen. _There._ Black paint dribbles from the corner of the sink like a line of blood from an open vein. I swipe a fingertip in it to confirm, bring it to my nose. Definitely paint. Above the sink is a row of cabinets. I tear one open. Buckets of paint line the shelf, all opened, all dribbling color. I snort, swing the cabinet shut with a flick of my wrist, and turn to look at my partners. Through the dust they are vague silhouettes.

I return. "Paint," I tell them, jabbing a thumb in its direction. "Don't know what he'd be doing with paint if it wasn't graffiti."

In Kidd's grip Vector begins to tremble. _So it_ was _you,_ I think, remembering the mockingjays scrawled over various electric plants, the inflammatory "Down With the Hunger Games! Death to the President! Long Live Elise Janssen!" scrawled in blood red on the Justice Building, dripping onto the street below.

Matrix tilts her head back. "Alright, Cell," she says, "Work him a bit."

He turns to me. "Celeukos," he begins, his tone wheedling, his eyes desperate. "Don't—"

I hit him, closed fist, square on the nose. One hit and I feel it snap under my knuckles, feel the warm blood squirting out over his upper lip. He squirms, yelps, pulls back as far as Kidd's grip on his arm allows.

I hit him again. The throat this time. It knocks the breath out of him. It's a blow that feels like death. Tears spring to his eyes and he clutches at his neck with his free hand, bowing like a reed, and as he does I wind back and kick him in the stomach. He reels, curls into a tighter ball, spits bloody foam onto the ground. I reach down and grab a fistful of hair, dragging him back upright, digging my fingers into his scalp.

"Elise Janssen," says Matrix. "Do you know her?"

At once he begins to shake his head, sweat flying from the ends of his short hair with every shake. "No! N-no!" he blubbers, "We never met, I have nothing to _do_ with the Underground, never even met any of them—"

Kidd's lip has curled back. I wonder how long it took to break her. Maybe she remained steadfast until they cut her skull open. Until they Smiled her. I wouldn't be surprised. In any event, seeing this man breaking so easily must revolt her.

Before Matrix can prompt me, I move behind Vector and grasp his skull in both of my hands, thumbs up against the corners of his eyes. "I'll pop your eyeballs out," I tell him, "With my thumbs. I've done it before."

As Vector screams and squeals and repeats that he doesn't know _anything_ about the Underground, never met any of them, Matrix moves close enough to him that every breath she exhales blows the hair on his forehead back. "We're going to kill you," she says, as he sobs, "Unless you can give us some useful information." She straightens up, drums a hand against her hip. "We were directed to you by information leaked by one of your coworkers," she says, "Who saw the paint on your uniforms. He was barely interrogated and he spilled everything." She steeples her finger in front of her nose and rocks back on her heels. "There's no need to die for this," she coaxes, "If you know anything at all, you might as well just say. No one has any loyalty to _you."_ Her eyes flicker to me, and back to him. "Celeukos doesn't," she says. "Your coworker didn't. You are utterly alone."

I press down lightly with my thumbs and Vector whines. "P-please," he gasps, "I—I don't know, read my mind, can't you do that, can't you see that I'm telling the truth, _please!"_

Matrix raises an eyebrow. "Regardless," she says, pacing back and forth, three steps in either direction before a sharp swivel, "The graffiti alone is an offence punishable by death." She shakes her head. "Elise Janssen is a traitor to our country," she says, picking at something underneath a fingernail. "And until she is apprehended, the Hunger Games will continue. The longer she lives, the more our children suffer. If you abhor the Hunger Games as much as you claim, you should pray for her death."

Vector's lower lip trembles. "You could stop them whenever you _want,"_ he says, pulling against Kidd's grip, "The Underground'll never give up Elise, the Games don't have to keep happening, they can stop—"

"For the Games to stop, Janssen must die, and the Underground must be dissolved," says Matrix. "It's necessary for the safety of this country. Surely you can understand." I flex my fingers against Vector's face, and his eyes roll in their sockets. "When the Underground is finished the Games will be disbanded. That is the promise our President has made to the Districts."

Vector's mouth opens and closes. Again his eyes roll towards mine. "Celeukos," he says, in a whisper, "I _don't know anything,_ I swear, I don't have anything to tell you about, _I'm not lying—"_

I press my gloved thumb against his sclera, he howls, and with a violent twist he tears himself away from me and Kidd and drops onto hands and knees on the cobbles, clutching the short blunt knife he's managed to wrestle from his clothes. I reach for my gun and Matrix pulls away from him with a shout. And, as usual, the both of us are too slow.

Before I can raise the gun, before Matrix even pulls hers from its holster, Kidd has lurched after Vector and wrestled him to the ground, grasping at the knife with fingers that know no pain, even as they are cut and sliced. When he spits in her face she dips her head down and pulls away a moment later with a scrap of flesh caught between her grinning white teeth. And she _is_ grinning. The last hallmark of a Smiler, the origin of the name, that hysterical lip-tearing grin, those bulging bloodshot eyes—she's wearing them both, as she does whenever Matrix gives her an order. It's a compulsion that, of yet, has not been cured in them. They follow orders, they Smile.

In the dim light Kidd is frenetic and inhuman. Her smile grows when she darts down and tears more flesh with her white bared teeth. I can see the hysteria in her grin, know from her own account that the compulsion can be agonizing, that she's torn the corners of her lips from Smiling many times. I imagine the terror of seeing that bloody grimacing face over my own, those haunted bulging eyes. Vector howls underneath Kidd, closes his eyes, looks away as she finally wrests his knife from his hand and grasps it between both of her palms.

I look away, across the room, so similar to my childhood home, while the thud of Kidd caving in Vector's skull with his own dull knife beats wetly into my brain. The dust displaces as Matrix sidles up to my side and puts a hand on the crook of my elbow. "I'm sorry," she says, while Vector screams. "This can't have been easy."

"Don't be," I tell her, as something splatters against the back of my boot. "He was a traitor. Long live Panem." My temples buzz with pain. My eyes ache. "Happy Hunger Games."

Behind us, with great finality, Vector stops screaming.

* * *

 **How was it? I hope it wasn't trash. Anyway, if you want to submit to the story, check out my profile where the submission form and available spots will both be found. To submit, please PM me the form. If you review it I'll delete it because I think reviewed forms are illegal and will then come down upon me with the long arm of the law and delete my story, which would be a real bummer. If you don't feel like submitting, thanks for reading this far regardless! Toodles for now, friends.**

 **~Fisher**


	2. Sleep Forever

**Hey guys! Back at it with the second prologue of this SYOT, still looking for tributes (a _lot_ of tributes) so feel free to submit, that's really all I have to say, everything else is on my profile page, this is a long sentence, bye for now.**

* * *

 _ **Prologue, Part Two**_

* * *

 **Celeukos "Cell" Callas, 38**

 **Peacekeeper, District Five**

For a while we stand in silence and stare at the paint dribbling from the side of the Justice Building, still wet and glistening in the early-morning sunlight, pooling on the marble steps. When I close my eyes I can hear the droplets hitting the ground like rain. The smell is heady and overpowering.

Matrix tugs on her gloves and tilts her head to the side. "It seems as though Vector Vasquez had help," she says at last, as we stare. "The graffiti wasn't just him."

"Looks like it," I agree, glaring up at the bulging caricature of the President of the Republic of Panem, TRAITOR scrawled in spidery black script over his bloodshot eyes and cartoonishly grotesque smile.

Matrix is the first to pull away. "There's nothing to be done about it now," she says. And she's right. Already a small army of huddled District Five citizens has descended on the Justice Building, frantic to scrub away the portrait before the general population arrives on its way to the electric plants. "At this point," Matrix continues, as we fall into step behind her, "The best we can do is return and question Vector's coworker again."

"Why?" I ask. "He told us everything we needed. He doesn't know any more."

"I feel as though Vector might have been a scapegoat," Matrix muses, rubbing her chin. "Or perhaps he wasn't working alone." She rolls her head until her neck pops. "Either way," she says, "the coworker— Array, right?—I'd like to think he knows more than he's telling us."

I understand the nuance behind her words. "We screwed up," I say, "Didn't we."

"If we don't apprehend the real perpetrators soon, this won't look good on our record," says Matrix. "I told our supervisor that the graffiti problem had been dealt with."

Around us the sunlight catches on towering glass windows and glitters harshly enough to burn. "We'll be alright," I tell Matrix, trying not to wince as the charged acridity of the air wounds my sinuses. "We'll find the guy."

On Matrix's left, Kidd is silent as she often is. Her features are pointed and narrow, fox-like. Her hair falls limply from her skull. Under her grey eyes are heavy bags. Does she sleep at night? She lives with Matrix—the mandate is that Smilers must live with their handlers, for safety reasons—but does she sleep, do Smilers have to? Surely they do; they are still human. And yet I'm not entirely sure.

Matrix turns so abruptly that I almost fail to notice. I adjust my course and jog back to her side as she walks with clipped little paces up to the chain link fence that separates Plant 14 from the rest of the district. She raps on it with her knuckle and the fence shivers like an animal.

Two somber-faced employees dart up to the fence and drag it open as we wait, nodding their heads before scurrying back to whatever they'd been engaged with before. Matrix sweeps forward and Kidd and I are pulled along in her wake.

Matrix corners the first employee before the woman has the chance to make it a few dozen paces away. "Array Salvo," says Matrix. "Where is he?"

The employee blinks. "Array?" she says, frowning very slightly, "Well, I think he's supposed to be in the subbasement today. We've been having backup generator problems, you know." She attempts a smile. "If—you know, just maybe—if the Capitol were to send more of the parts we needed…"

Matrix looks away. "Resource control," she says, "You know that, I'm sure." The woman's face falls; Matrix continues looking somewhere else. "We'll be going," she says, brushing past the woman. "Thank you for your time."

Kidd and I follow Matrix as she veers past rows upon rows of electrical towers humming in the open air and heads for the low, long building that surely houses our mark. For a while Matrix doesn't speak. When she looks at me, there is something unidentifiable in her eyes. "I hate it when they ask for things the Capitol can't provide them," she says.

"It's not your fault," I begin, but she cuts me off with a wave of her hand.

"Oh, I know," she says. We reach the building and descend a few steps to reach the door, which Kidd shoves open with a foot. Inside is a massive hollowed space, choked with machines that mean very little to me, plastered with warning signs, crawling with workers. We stand on a reverberating metal catwalk suspended over the chaos below. Matrix, guided by her impeccable sense of direction, turns right, and we follow.

"It's like they don't realize why the Capitol took power again," she blurts. "They don't seem to understand that everything is almost gone." She narrows her eyes. "Blight in Seven. Pollution in Four. The mines get deeper all the time in Twelve and they still can't find anything." She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. "We _needed_ the Capitol to take control with a firm hand," she says, as we step into a stairwell and begin our long descent. "We still need them. I find it appalling that these people still insist on rebellion." She glances quickly at Kidd. "No offense meant," she says, although the words seem a bit disingenuous. Kidd doesn't even reply.

Our footfalls echo up the stairwell. "A few more years of Games and I think they'll give up," I say. "Janssen can't hold out forever. Almost everyone in Panem despises her for letting their children die instead of facing the music herself."

"Almost everyone," says Matrix, "Is not quite enough."

The stairs end in a squat vestibule that reeks of old paint. We push through the door and into Plant 14's subbasement, a short shadowy corridor with several padlocked doors. The fluorescent strips on the ceiling flicker in and out seemingly at random, humming electrically every time they spring back to life. The only place to go seems to be the door at the end of the hallway that's slightly ajar, and we spread out and head towards it. I rest my hand on the butt of my gun, feel the reassuring cool metal through my glove.

"Array Salvo?" Matrix calls, pushing the door open with the flat of her palm. "Are you in there?"

Silence. If he's there, he's not saying.

We step into the room. It's a small room, dominated by the squat hulking generator stretched across the entire back wall, shuddering and humming, occasionally emitting small sparks or bursts of steam. The dry heat bakes our flesh. "He's not here," I call over the noise of the backup generator. "Let's head back up—"

The fluorescent light from the outside hallway shorts out with a fizz. We are left in the sweating dark. My heart is audible in my chest. My head swims.

"This doesn't feel right," I mumble, and the generator explodes.

There are a few moments of blackness, a few more of panicked confusion, and I find myself curled on my side at the other end of the room, back against the wall, body twitching and convulsing as electricity races up and down my limbs and torso. My hands open and close without my conscious choice. Saliva drools from the open corner of my mouth. For a brief, near-hysterical moment I wonder if this is how Kidd feels all the time, powerless, unable to control her own body. It is a nightmare feeling.

On the other side of the room Matrix lies on her back, twitching like a fish out of water. Kidd shudders with her face to the floor, fingers scrabbling against concrete. The generator has stopped humming. _A trap,_ I think, through the confusion swimming in my brain, _He set a trap for us, that son of a bitch—_

The door opens.

I can't see the faces from my angle, only the feet. Five, no, six people stream into the room, shutting the door behind them. The darkness is near-absolute, but I can hear two of them coming closer, and I want to rage, to rise, to blow them to pieces. Instead I continue to convulse.

They are speaking now. Their words are fragmented in my addled brain. _I don't understand,_ I think. Dread seizes me. _What did they do to me, I don't understand, I'm afraid—_

There is a sharp pain at the side of my neck. Then there is nothing.

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 **Hey again. Don't have much more to say down here except check out my profile if you'd like to submit. There are many many spots left so I'm sure there's at least one that you might want! Maybe. I dunno. Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	3. The Loner

**Sup guys!**

 **Still looking for a great deal of tributes (aren't I always?) This is the last prologue chapter I'm going to upload, and hopefully it'll drum up some more interest, because I really want to write this story. But if it doesn't and I can't write this SYOT for lack of tributes I promise I'll write something for each of the tributes already submitted, because you guys are amazing and I really appreciate your work and the tributes I've received.**

 **That being said, hopefully I _can_ write this story; I've got some really fun ideas for it. So if you're on the fence about submitting, please do! I'd appreciate it fam**

 **Moving on, here's the last prologue chapter!**

* * *

 _ **Prologue, Part Three**_

* * *

 **Celeukos "Cell" Callas, 38**

 **Peacekeeper, District Five**

From the chaos in my mind a single keening voice breaks free and arrests my attention in its panic. _Celeukos,_ it wails, _don't go under, not again, you need to think, you need to focus._

So I do.

There is a tracker jacker hum in my mind, thick swirls of grey fabric that confuse and conceal, a sort of throbbing pain digging into flesh and limbs that I can hardly otherwise feel. Sweat, on my temples and around my collarbone. The sharp stink of fear.

 _Third,_ the voice in my mind whispers, almost hysterical, _third time you've gotten this close, remember, there was the first and then the second was darker and now you're nearly there but you have to wake up wake up wake up wake up_

The effort is monumental. I struggle against the grey foggy curtains that only exist in my head, throw away the pain, sharpen the internal cacophony into a single demanding voice that says, _WAKE UP,_ and then I do. The relief is immediate and powerful, and I want to laugh, but when I feel for my lips they are swollen and glued together with dried saliva.

The eyes, then. I'll go for the eyes.

After a few silent moments my right eye draws open a fraction, blinks blearily, starts to close. _NO,_ I tell myself, and it opens again, a grey cracked ceiling drawing into view above me, and that startles my other eye into opening as well. I stare up at the ceiling and try to calm the noise in my head into something productive. _Think, Celeukos,_ I tell myself, as my temples throb, _think and you'll know what to do._

"You're awake," says the voice, slithering into my ears like the rasping forward progress of a snake. "Unexpected."

My heart stops, starts, stops again. Then I lift my throbbing head.

It is a small room, grey like the ceiling, no windows, the only light source a bulb dangling from above on a slender chain. There are two chairs in the room, facing each other, and I shudder and stare down at my body, stripped of its uniform, and recognize that I have been restrained in one of them. I can hardly feel my body but I take in the straps and the cuffs and understand that if I regained full mastery of it at this moment it wouldn't matter, steps have been taken to ensure that I remain where I am. I narrow my eyes, try to clench my fists, and fail. Experimentally I go limp against the straps, feel them digging into my chest and stomach but not giving way. That was too much to expect.

"Celeukos Callas," says the voice, and somehow my name sounds perverse. "Peacekeeper, District Five. 38 years old." There is a pause while I raise my head, look him in the eyes. "Missing in action," he continues, while I gape, "Presumed dead."

It's Rueben Savage.

 _Rueben Savage,_ defeater of poor odds, survivor of knife and club and fire, Victor of the 91st Hunger Games. _Rueben Savage,_ the District Seven boy who spat at official Games interviewer Melentius Loomer and was punished in the arena for it by the denarii of a thousand Capitolians who paid to see him burn. _Rueben Savage,_ who came from the arena missing part of his skull, his lips, his hair, his genitals, the right half of his body melted and scarred and grotesque. _Rueben fucking Savage,_ and though my training screams at me to be _calm, calm,_ I remember what he did in the arena, and I am afraid.

He stares at me from under the hood I remember him wearing during his Victory Tour, eyes sunken behind purple bruised flesh, grey and flat. In his hands he holds a flask dribbling clear droplets of water, which he tosses from hand to hand. The pain in my head doubles and I cringe against the straps holding me to the chair, tongue feeling like dried-up old leather in my mouth.

Rueben leans forward and the flask goes from pale white hand to mutilated scarred hand and then right back to the smooth one, over and over. "Celeukos," he says, " _Cell."_ He's mocking me. "What will you do for this water, I wonder?" He gives the flask a little shake and I can hear its contents sloshing. Somehow I can still produce saliva, and a strand of it drips from my rubbery bleeding lips.

My throat constricts. " _Go… to… hell,"_ I rasp, and every word tears at my abused throat, but I keep going, shuddering against the straps, _"Traitor, rebel, Underground."_ My words are filled with pain. _"Evil, twisted—"_

Rueben stands abruptly and his hand darts for my face. I expect a slap, a punch, but he grasps me firmly by the chin and tilts my head back and then he brings the flask to my lips. I gasp and the water is cold, so cold, and it runs down the side of my face as I drink with the mad desperation of the dying.

When he pulls away I gasp, sated and nauseous, and glare up at him through a curtain of my dark hair. "You," I manage, in a voice closer to my own, "Victor, District Seven— Savage," I finish, and he knows that I know, but surely he was aware I would recognize him when all of Panem does. "Rebel," I continue, snarling, baring my teeth. "Traitor."

He falls gracefully back into his chair, sprawling over it like a cat, and the corners of his lips turn up. "Yes," he says, "To all of them."

I pant, stare up at him, and consider that if he's willing to talk I at least might be able to get something out of him before he kills me. And that's what he's going to do. My palms sweat at the thought but long ago the instinct to lie to myself was bred out of me, and I know he'll kill me, if not now then someday soon. "Why?" I ask him, and he seems to understand what I mean because he raises the skin where his eyebrows would be if they hadn't burned away years ago.

He stares down at me along the sharp plane of his smooth nose, one of the only parts of his face that haven't been twisted by scar tissue. "I do what I do for Panem," he says.

" _So do I."_

He actually has the audacity to smile. "You do what you do for the Capitol," he says, and he waggles a finger. "There's a difference, _Cell."_ He steeples his fingers and rests his chin against them. "But even something like you can be of value." His teeth, white and perfect, glint in the darkness. "I will use you, Cell," he says, staring at me, "To carry out my will." He cocks his head. "The Capitol runs this country to the ground with its sanctions," he says, and I know that he's said these words before, to his Underground rebel friends, and I hate the words. "People starve in the streets. Children die in the Games." He runs feather-light fingers across the ruined half of his face. "The Capitol deals in cruelty," he says, "and it deludes itself into believing this is how things _must be."_ He shakes his head; his hood dances around him. "No," he says, "No. Things are going to change."

I strain against the bondage. "Go to hell," I manage, spitting out the words, "I won't give you a damn thing," and as I speak Rueben gets to his feet and crosses the room to where the bulb dangles from the ceiling. He tugs on the cord and the room goes dark completely.

His voice crawls from the blackness. "I'm not giving you the option," he says, and in the span of a moment there is a familiar pain against my neck.

 _"Fuck,"_ I mutter, as I lose control of my tongue again, as the chaos in my mind begins to brew, as the pain flares in my temples. The grey foggy curtains swirl up to envelop me and I can't find it in myself to resist. _Celeukos,_ screams the voice in my mind, _fight, fight,_ but I can't fight anymore, it hurts too badly, and the voice fades with the rest of me, and all I can see in the dark are the hard flat eyes of Rueben Savage, and all I can feel is the muted stab of fear.

* * *

 **Rueben Savage? More like Rueben... _Savage. haha because he's a savage guy lol i'm not subtle_**

 **And where are Matrix and Kidd? dunn dunn dunn**

 **Head to my profile page to submit. All the cool kids are doing it. Well, some of them are, I think.**


	4. Kids

**Sup guys it's ya girl back again with the latest chapter, hope you enjoy! A couple things:**

 **1\. No, this isn't District One reapings. I realized that I couldn't bring myself to write all the reapings because they can get boring if you write literally all of them, so this is a pre-Reapings chapter detailing our lovely tributes' lives in the year before they themselves are reaped.**

 **2\. THIS IS IMPORTANT. Please let me know somehow, any way you can, which of these updating schedules you'd prefer: updating more than once a week, exactly once a week, or less than once a week. I update fast so any of these could work for me. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me which of them works for you. Leave it in a review, PM me, whatever you want, just let me know.**

 **3\. Mature themes! Every chapter will have them but this chapter has 'em in spades. If you think you will be made uncomfortable by anything in this chapter, skip Stitch Le'Craw's POV and send me a PM and I'll give you the gist of it.**

 **Happy reading guys!**

* * *

 ** _Pre-Reapings, Districts Eight and Eleven_**

* * *

 **Tomara "Tom" Silken, 12**

 **District Eight Female**

Around us the sea of young women lets out a collective breath it didn't know it was holding, begins to buzz with the near-hysterical relieved whispers of thousands of girls who've done it, who've made it past their first reaping, who've _survived._ And all I can do is look at Faye, with her arms wrapped around herself, with the first tears beginning their slow arc down her cheeks, with her head pointed towards the ground. She risks a glance at me and that does it, she begins sobbing in earnest, swaying back and forth.

"Don't worry," I tell her, my eyes fixed on her swaying back. "Lina's gonna win."

The crowd is breaking up, the sea dissolving into hundreds of whorls and eddies of twelve-year old survivors, and they flow through the space in between me and Faye until I close the distance and wrap my arms around her, burying my nose in the soft fat braid hanging heavy at the nape of her neck. All around us is the click of metal soles against cobblestones, the muted snapshots of a dozen conversations at once, a giggle, a sob, all of it hyper-present for a single moment, gone forever in the next.

Faye's braid smells like soap, and for a moment I forget where I am, in the very center of the Fog where the chems hang so heavy in the air you can see them. Sometimes the smell keeps me up at night, the smell so sweet it tortures my sinuses. Faye's braid isn't like that. It has a human smell. I knead her shoulders with my fingertips and close my eyes. "Lina's gonna win," I tell the back of her head, "I promise."

She turns to look at me with shining eyes. "Do—do you think so?" A hiccup.

I nod. "I wouldn't be saying it if I didn't think so." She's gone from the stage, they've all gone, but still I find myself craning my neck to see it over the thinning pack of girls around us. Four metal chairs squat in the far corner and their emptiness makes them ominous. The microphone bristles, front and center, and to its left and right are the reaping bowls, from which, not ten minutes ago, the name _Lina Chevron_ was plucked from thousands upon thousands of other names. Just like that. It doesn't take much.

Somewhere in the distance there is a wail, a long keening animal sound that devolves into a girlish scream, and I would know that voice anywhere. "Luna!" I call, and my voice must be a light in her darkness, because the wailing gets louder and closer. She bursts through a knot of girls whispering to each other and they stream away in confused, frenetic patterns. She ignores them as she grasps the front of my dress shirt and howls into it, broad face hidden by white fabric.

I gather her up in my arms, crooning something nonsensical as she shudders and sobs into my front. Then she releases her vice-grip on me and pulls away. Her eyes are so swollen I can hardly see them; mucus drips from her nostrils. "They _took_ her," she rasps, "They took my sister and they're gonna _kill_ her." Her voice is raw and drips hatred.

"Lina's not gonna die, Luna," I say.

She screams at that, and the few girls that remain in the square shudder and shift away, staring guiltily in our direction. _They're glad they're not us,_ I think, and I can't blame them. "She _is!"_ Luna sobs, sinking to her knees, clutching at herself, "it's the Games, _it's the Games,_ the Games _kill you,_ it's not _fair."_

I drop to her side and stroke her dark hair. "Luna," I half-whisper, "Lina is strong, and she's brave, and she's daring, and she's tough. And she's gonna win." Her hair is smooth under my palm. "D'you think she could live with herself if she died in the Games? No," I say, shaking my head, "No, she couldn't, so she won't. She'll come back to us." If I look at the stage I can see her standing there, raising a fist in victory, and I swell with the realization that what I'm seeing is a glimpse into the future, because she'll be there, because she's coming home. "Lina's gonna win," I repeat, as I stare into the future. "She has to."

* * *

I press the wet rag against my bruised eye socket, and after a moment's hesitation I toss the second rag to my father, who catches it one-handed and dabs at the cut on his bottom lip. _Blood is a tough stain to get out,_ I think, watching him as he winces, but I don't say anything. The last thing I want right now is to antagonize him. The last thing I need is a second black eye, and I don't want to have to hurt my father again.

The television flickers to life, unprompted, streaked with static for a moment before snapping into focus. "Mandatory viewing," announces my father to the empty air, as he settles more firmly into his ancient chair. The rag falls to the side, forgotten. I press my own rag a bit deeper into my eye socket and scoot forward on the carpet.

The interviews. Melentius Loomer plays the crowd for a bit, but it doesn't last long, rarely does. And then he's tearing through the tributes like he does every year, poking at sore subjects, hunting for embarrassing truths, sniffing for secrets. He has the boy from Six nearly in tears by the time the interview's done.

And then there's Lina, tall, slender, regal all in white, frowning just a little as Melentius invites her to take her seat. "Lina Chevron, twelve years old," he begins, grinning with all his teeth, "The youngest tribute in the 97th Hunger Games. What would you say your chances were? Do you have much hope for Victory?"

Lina, brave, beautiful Lina, smiles, and she says "If I managed to survive District Eight for as long as I did, I'm sure the Hunger Games will be doable." The Capitol laughs, Melentius laughs, my father laughs, and I stifle my grin with the palm of my hand. _If anyone can do it,_ I think, _It's her, she'll win them over and then she'll win for real._ Her interview goes on and there's more laughter, and Lina cracks a smile for a moment or two, and my best friend is so beautiful and clever there on that stage I can hardly believe it.

I don't pay much attention to the other districts. Instead I think of Lina and am amazed at the charming, acerbic wit I never knew she had. My father looks at me shifty-eyed when the program ends and the television fizzles back into silence, and he says, "Your Lina did good up there." The cut on his bottom lip has crusted over and I wince when I remember how it felt to drive my elbow into it. I had to do it, or he wouldn't've stopped hitting. I didn't enjoy it. I never do.

"Thanks, Dad," I tell him, as I play with one of the loose threads dangling from the edge of the carpet. "I think so too. She's gonna win."

He grunts and looks away. After a moment, I look away too.

* * *

Faye sits beside me, hand snaking out from under her wooden desk, and I grab it and squeeze it as the projector shudders and spits at the front of the classroom. Mrs. Tailor stands in funereal shadow beside it, hands clasped behind her back, spine ramrod straight. From the projector comes the tinny desperate sounds of the Bloodbath of the 97th Hunger Games. Nobody moves. Nobody speaks.

Onscreen, tributes die and tributes kill and it's almost impossible to tell who is who. I scan every fallen face and I don't see her. I don't expect to. Only when I see a tall slim short-haired figure darting from the Cornucopia with a pack clutched in a white-knuckled grip do I give Faye's hand a comforting squeeze. _She's alive,_ I tell her without words, as Lina and her ally, the boy from Five, sprint through a set of double doors and vanish from the screen, _Lina's alive._

The Bloodbath is over only when the Careers finish mutilating the little boy from Three. Mandatory viewing ends when the little boy does, and Mrs. Tailor flicks off the projector and turns the lights back on with barely disguised relief. "Congratulations to Lina Chevron and Thread Whitaker for surviving the Bloodbath," she says, and waits for the scattered applause to die down before announcing a temporary recess from lessons, during which she advises us to "think about what we just witnessed," and advises us to "hope that Elise Janssen turns herself in soon or the Games will never stop." Thirty seconds later, the room has erupted into the chaos of forty students speaking at once.

I find myself in the center of it, perched at the edge of a desk, voice low and fast. "It'll be Lina," I tell my gaggle of listeners, "She's my best friend and she's smart as a whip, and fast. You saw how she got that pack at the Cornucopia, right?" Nods all around, and I nod too and flash a grin. "Well, she's better prepared than half the tributes that're left, and whatever's in that pack, she'll know how to use it." In the little crowd below me Faye is nodding, eyes wide and trusting. "I love Lina," I tell them, pressing my knuckles to my heart, "And I know her better than anyone except her sister maybe, and I know that she's going to come home." My heart pulses in my chest. "I know it."

* * *

A week later Lina's ally from Five trips her in front of a heavy wooden door and swings it shut on her skull, over and over again, while my mother cries and my father looks away.

I don't cry, and I don't look away. When the cannon sounds and the rage suffuses and ignites my body, I promise myself that all of them will pay.

* * *

 **Stitch Le'Craw, 18**

 **District Eight Male**

The sheets are stifling and entirely decorative, anyway, and after several sweltering seconds I kick them clumsily away from my sweating body and let them pool at the foot of the bed. I curl my toes, arch my back, and hiss through my closed jaw. I want to scream. Instead I swivel onto my side and say, "You still here, sweetheart?"

She isn't. The other side of the bed is cool and empty, and I flop onto my belly and push myself onto the colder side of the bed with aching knees. I grip the side of the mattress and slide my hand under the pillow and a few pieces of paper brush up against my pinkie finger. I crumple them into a fist and pull them out, examining them in the dim blue-ish light filtering in from the thick glass and gauzy curtains.

 _Three denarii. That goddamn bitch._

Better that she left before I woke up, because if I'd seen her leaving three denarii as a tip, I might have told her not to bother, or I might have strangled her with the decorative sheets, and Rita can overlook a lot but murdering a client would not look good on my record.

Better that she left for a lot of reasons. I get out of bed and pad to where I left my clothing in a crumpled heap on the chair, stuffing the bills into the pocket of my hoodie. _Mine,_ I think, and there's warmth in my chest when I think it, _My money, I earned it,_ but then I remember _how_ I earned it and the smile that had begun to work its way across my face evaporates.

I pad back to the bed on bare feet and huddle amongst the blankets, wishing it were colder in the room. Rita likes to keep this place hot. She likes to see the sweat on us. She has us tell them that their bodies drive us wild with desire, but really we're sweating because it's so fucking hot in here that one or two of the whores possessing more delicate constitutions have passed out from heatstroke in the act.

 _Whore_ is an ugly word.

In the dream I'd been having before I woke up clawing at the sheets, the Peacekeeper from Two had transformed into a bear that held me down with massive iron-tipped paws and ravaged my torso with vice-jaws. Then the bear transformed back into the Peacekeeper from Two who held me down with a muscled forearm while he fumbled with the clasp of my belt and I stared up at him all doe-eyed because Rita told me, _don't resist,_ and so I didn't. The bear and the Peacekeeper both whisper it while they savage me, _whore, whore, whore,_ and I usually wake up with the word still ringing in my ears.

I groan, run my fingers through my sweat-soaked charcoal hair. Oh man. I feel like I'm dying.

For a while I stare up at the ceiling and drum my fingers against my abdomen. When someone taps at the door I barely raise my head, consider shifting the sheets to hide my privates, and realize that I don't really care. "Come in," I call, and go back to looking at the ceiling and tracing the raised lines of scar tissue on my torso. Every scar tells a story.

I can tell that it's her from the way her shape blocks the light from the hallway. "You did well, Stitch," says Rita, closing the door behind her and going to sit on my chair with my clothing still on it. She hunkers down like a big cat, all lolling curves and simpering smiles. "Cami praised you very highly."

"Oh, wonderful," I say, tracing blithely away. "Good to hear that _high praise_ from Cami is worth about three fucking denarii."

Rita flicks an eyebrow. "You don't survive on tips, dear," she says. "I'm sure you'll be fine."

"Yeah, yeah." I wave a hand, close my eyes. I am so tired. "What are you doin' here, Rita?" I continue. "If you're here to fuck me, I've been told I'm _expensive."_

She shifts in the chair. "You'll be entertaining another client tonight," she says, picking at something under her fingernail.

That gets my attention. I half-rise from the bed, supporting myself on my elbows, and gape at her. _"What?"_ I exclaim, "I'm finished for tonight! By Everdeen, woman, I probably couldn't get it up even if I _wanted_ to, which I don't." I'm panting. "I'm _done,"_ I repeat, knowing full well that it's useless from the way she crosses her legs at the ankles and folds her arms over her chest.

 _"Stitch,"_ she sniffs.

Oh boy. Here it comes.

"When I found you," she says, tossing her head of black hair, "You were scrapping it out on the street with _knives,_ you had nothing, you made so little that you had to _steal,_ your family was dead and you were sickly and alone. _Now_ you are well fed, make money, are safer than you've ever been, and you complain about extra work?" Her nostrils flare. _"Unbelievable,"_ she crows, "Sometimes you make me wonder why I took pity on you in the first place, dear. Honestly."

Goddammit. Forget strangling Cami, strangling Rita would probably be more productive.

I pull myself upright and lean against the headboard. "Who is it?" I ask, because saying anything else might open the floodgates completely, and if I want any sleep tonight I won't piss Rita off any more than I already have. She swivels to face me, nodding as though I've come to my senses.

"His name is Dalton," she says.

"Peacekeeper?" I ask, palms sweating. She nods and watches me from underneath thick eyelashes.

"You'll do it," she says. "Won't you, Stitch?"

I want to bury myself in the sheets and never come out. I want to vanish into the Fog and get eroded by chems. I want to be somewhere else.

"I'll do it," I mutter, and roll onto my back.

I can't see her but I can sense her approval. "Good choice," she says, and the chair squeals as she gets to her feet. I can hear her long nails clicking against the doorknob. "He wants to be dominated," she says into the darkness. "I thought you were the best choice for that tonight."

"I'm sure," I mumble into the pillow. My eyelids are so heavy.

"He'll be up in five minutes," says Rita, behind me. "Be ready, Stitch." I don't grace that one with a response, and after a moment she closes the door and leaves me to the dark. I toy with the idea of falling back asleep and then the thought of a Peacekeeper looming over my unconscious body has me sitting straight up in bed, the hairs on my forearms stiff at attention.

I slide from the bed, slouch to my underwear and jeans, and drag them onto unwilling legs. Then I arrange myself on the bed in a pose I've always thought is more ridiculous than sultry, but it always seems to get them going. A bead of sweat drips down the side of my neck, past a pulsing vein. Passion. _Right._

I can hear him in the hallway. His movements are tentative, the way the floorboards squeal under his weight somehow unsure. The Peacekeeper from Two, he wasn't unsure for a moment, not when he pulled me by the shirtfront into this very room, not when he pressed me down, not when he went for my clothes. A tremor crawls down my naked torso. _I shouldn't have done it,_ I think, for the thousandth time, _I should never have agreed to this._

The door opens.

He's a young man. Gangly, not particularly attractive. His eyes are sunken and suspicious. He slips into the room and is careful to close it quietly behind him. It's almost endearing.

"H-hello," he says, his throat catching on the word for a moment before letting him carry on. He wrings his hands. "I don't know if Miss Rita told you what I—"

"Get on your knees." My words are short, cold, brutal. I hardly look at him. Just enough to see the confusion and arousal swimming on his face, in equal measure.

He gets on his knees, presses his palms into the white fabric covering his thighs. By Everdeen, he's _blushing._

I yawn, stretch, fiddle with my belt buckle. I can see him shifting, so I bark, "Don't move," and he goes still. With painstaking slowness I slip from the bed, amble over to where he kneels on the warm wood, and I unclasp the belt and loop it around his pimpled neck, tight enough that panic flickers into his eyes momentarily. I tug on the loose end and he chokes and whimpers, bent nearly double at the waist to alleviate some of the tension at his neck.

Poor bastard. I almost want to put the belt away. But he'll get what he's paid for, at least.

"You know what to call me," I whisper, against his ear, tugging all the while at the end of the belt. He shudders, and I don't know why, but I know he'll tell me to stop if he needs me to.

He doesn't. Instead, he manages to wheeze out the word "Master" between increasingly vicious tugs on the belt. "Very good," I whisper, while in my mind I bleat, _Wrong word, the correct answer would have been_ whore, _nice try though._

I get to work on the first button of his uniform, and think that I must be losing it.

* * *

 **Lily White, 16**

 **District Eleven Female**

"One more time," says Foxglove, as we walk the path that winds its way through Little Field and tapers to a stop dead center of the resident settlement. "Tell me _one more time_ that this'll work."

Heat rises in shimmering translucent waves from the asphalt underneath our feet. I've seen skin stick to asphalt like this when it gets really bad. It's a smell you never forget. "It'll work," I tell her, eyes fixed on the clustered buildings a few hundred feet away, "I think."

Foxglove sighs and shakes the sweat out from her ponytail. "And you don't think this is something they flog for, if you're wrong."

I close my eyes for a moment, remember the bite of the whip against my father's broad back, how he muffled his screams for as long as he could but eventually they tore free from his bleeding lips, the weeks of treating him after the incident, keeping the flies from laying eggs in the meat of his body, and I say, "I don't think they'll flog us." But now I'm not sure. I'm chilled, despite the heat, and I rub my hands against my torso to warm myself up. But the chill is internal, I think, because it doesn't work.

For a while we walk in my preferred silence, until we reach the outskirts of the settlement and the shabby little buildings rise up around us, dark grain-wood buildings with windows lacking glass, only curtains that flutter in the wind like heartbeats. The square is our destination and we pass these buildings by. Those buildings are for people who don't have to take a suicidal amount of tesserae, who can buy a little extra; they're not meant for people like us.

In the middle of the day the settlement is almost deserted. There's an old woman throwing scraps of _something_ to a mangy old dog, a boy balancing on a fence watching some pigs rooting through a trough, and the ever-present Peacekeeper population. There's a squad on the road in front of us, standing almost dead-center, staring out at District Eleven like it has something to prove. From the looks of them, none are from this district. Well, Peacekeepers rarely are.

We draw closer. Foxglove hardly glances at them, but when one looks my way my cheeks color and I drop my gaze to my sandals, staring at my dark toes as they curl into the sole of the shoe. Closer, now, closer for one of them to reach out and _touch,_ or at least to put us to a halt, to force us to reveal our business. None of them say a word. I catch the eye of the smallest Peacekeeper for a moment, the white-blonde pale one who has the looks of a child of One. _He's the Smiler,_ I guess, noting the way he stands with an almost-hunch, withdrawn, perhaps despising the two men around him. _The one on his left, that's his handler,_ I decide, seeing the man's watchful eye, _and the other guy is the artillery._

It is only once we've left them far behind that I relax, draw a hand over my forehead. Foxglove catches me and raises an eyebrow. "Come on, Lily," she says, "If you act guilty around Peacekeepers all the time eventually they _are_ gonna do something to you."

"Not guilty," I say, but don't bother finishing the sentence with the _'Just scared'_ it deserves. Surely Foxglove _must_ know me well enough by now to figure that out on her own.

The only person in the square is a man sweeping detritus of some event out into the street. I look at him and envy him the job he's been given, the simple task of sweeping an empty square. I doubt he's ever known the brutal heat of the orchards, the aggressive terror of the simple knowledge that a single bruised fruit means no money will be made that day. I sigh and look away. _Lucky,_ I think, as we cross the square and head to the shallow steps that lead up into the Justice Building, _and he doesn't even know it._

There is some sort of cooling system installed in the Justice Building, because when we enter the heat is blown away from our sweating bodies and relegated to the porch like an unwelcome house guest. One of the great doors swings shut behind us. I fidget in the lobby, feeling very out of place here amongst the paintings and statues and ornate staircase. Foxglove grabs my forearm and yanks me towards the desk by the staircase, and I imagine how I must look and am ashamed.

She only lets me go when we reach the desk. "Hello," she says, "We're here for tesserae."

The woman behind the desk raises an eyebrow. "Tesserae?" she says. "Honey, you've been waiting an awful long time. Shipment was half a month ago. It might not even be good."

Foxglove fixes a grin on her face. "We'll still take it," she says.

The woman heaves a great sigh and pushes away from the desk, reaching for the phone by her hand. She taps in the number and holds the phone up to her ear. For a moment we make eye contact, and I look away immediately, forcing myself to stare at the arched ceiling, anywhere but her.

She finishes her call without me hearing a word and sits back down at her desk, going back to drumming her fingernails against the wood. They sound like raindrops.

Five minutes go by. I want to ask the woman if someone is coming for us, but when I open my mouth the words die on my lips and I go back to scanning the lobby with restless energy. Somewhere behind one of the staircases a door opens, and a pressed young woman comes sashaying towards us, hips swinging, eyes glimmering. "Here for tesserae?" she says, addressing both of us, and I let Foxglove stand in front of me and take the lead.

"Yes ma'am," she says, and the pretty young woman nods and raises a hand.

"Come with me to the storeroom," she says. "It's not often people miss distribution day. I rarely have to do this job."

Foxglove fights to catch up to her. I remain in the background. "This is a special case," says Foxglove, when she reaches the woman's side. "You'll see in a minute."

The woman shrugs but says nothing. We reach a door disguised as a garish patch of wallpaper and the young woman tugs it open and descends a shallow flight of stairs, Foxglove at her heels. I take a moment before following. Will the woman call the Peacekeepers if she doesn't like what we have to say? Will the white-blonde Smiler on the road outside whip me bloody himself, or will he just tear me apart with his hands? Fear crawls down my spine as I step into the narrow stairwell. If these things happen, it will be my fault, and no one else's.

By the time I reach the bottom of the stairwell Foxglove and the woman have already vanished through an open door in the equally-narrow hallway. I smooth my coarse shirt with my hands and slip through the doorway. They've been waiting for me. For a panicked moment I think that Foxglove perhaps expects me to explain the situation, but she only nods at my arrival and tugs on her ponytail, maybe for luck.

Empty crates scatter the room and the faint smell of old grain lingers in the air, thick enough that I almost sneeze before I can stop myself. As I pull the heel of my palm away from my nose the young woman produces a clipboard from behind a few sacks of grain. My stomach rumbles at the sight and the smell.

She scans the board, and frowns. "Name?" she says at last, squeezing the board between slender fingers.

Foxglove steps forward. "Basil Carver and Magnolia Thresher," she says.

The woman's face could be stone. Slowly she turns from Foxglove to me, and I wilt under the emptiness in her eyes. _Peacekeepers_ , I think, _she's going to call them for sure and they'll whip us to death._ I can feel the lash tearing into the muscle of my back even now. I can feel myself dying.

She turns her attention back to Foxglove. "Neither of you are Basil Carver," she says, "And neither of you are Magnolia Thresher." The clipboard is steady in her hands. "You know very well what happened to them."

"Right," says Foxglove, "They died in the 97th. So you know very well that they're not ever going to need tesserae again."

She's being too bold. She sounds callous. If this woman knew one of those children, if she cared for either of them, then this is over, we're finished. But the woman just continues to stare and stare.

"What about their families?" says the woman. She sounds almost intrigued.

Foxglove tugs again on her ponytail. "It's been three weeks," she says, "And they haven't collected. Tesserae becomes public property after two. We've checked the rule books and we know it's true." She sidles a little closer, bares a grin that shows teeth. "You could have just thrown it out. But you didn't. You waited for someone to claim it, and right now, that person is me."

For a long, agonizing moment, the woman only looks at her. Something flickers on her face.

Then she takes the pen on her clipboard and makes two little checks with a flick of her wrist. "Claimed," she says, as she indicates the overflowing bags. "The grain is most likely stale. I would suggest eating it quickly."

" _Thank_ you," says Foxglove, snatching up one of the bags. She tosses the lighter one to me, and I barely catch it, managing to wrap my arms around it's warm weight before it tumbles back to the ground. I can feel the grain shifting through the bag, and it feels like survival.

The woman sees us back to the lobby with quiet grace. She smiles before she returns to her basement, at Foxglove, and says "You're a smart girl."

Foxglove shakes her head. "Nah," she says, "This whole thing was Lily's idea. I never woulda thought of it." She heaves the bag in her arms. "Come on Lily, let's get out of here."

Until we reach the porch of the Justice Building we are silent. Then Foxglove whoops and punches the air, and I smile into the bag clutched against my chest. "You did it," Foxglove grins, clapping my shoulder, "You freaking genius, you did it."

"Yeah," I agree. _Until next month_ , I think, _when we're all starving again and I have to come up with something new._

I keep that thought to myself.

* * *

 **Some of the more eagle-eyed among you might've noticed that I changed the chapter titles. I might do it again. I love changing chapter titles. I'm nuts about it.**


	5. Confident

**Twice weekly, she said. It'll be fun, she said.**

 **Well, I'll do my best, I can't promise every week's gonna be twice weekly but I'll try hard to make it happen because i love u guys :'))))**

 **Also, haha kashew klick, Aella totally is in this chapter, idk if this was a surprise to you because i'm not subtle but she's right there lmao**

 **Enjoy, everybody!**

* * *

 ** _Pre-Reapings, Districts Two and Ten_**

* * *

 **Aella Poyner, 18**

 **District Two Female**

When I rap on Dean Vega's door with my knuckle, there is a tiny moment of hesitation before she calls "Enter!" I reach for the doorknob and swing myself inside the small room, one whose interior I've never seen before. In six years I have never required disciplinary action. I don't expect that this meeting has anything to do with any wrongdoing of mine.

The room is cramped, overflowing with papers and files. The desk pressed against the right wall is cluttered; medals and tiny weaponry figurines and stale cracker crumbs are everywhere. The Dean swipes some of these away with her forearm before giving up and settling back into her seat, gesturing towards the chair in front of her that seems to be there for me.

I sit. Seated, Dean Vega towers over me like almost everyone but the twelvies does. I force myself to sit up straighter, knowing that it won't do much good given my height but unwilling not to at least try.

"Aella," says the Dean, plucking up and ruffling through a file I imagine is mine. "I'd like to start out by letting you know that you're not in any trouble. Quite the opposite, in fact."

I incline my head and sit still, staring up at her while she scans something in the file. "By all accounts," continues the Dean, "Your recent test results have been quite good. You've excelled in almost all physical exams, wrestling and hand-to-hand being the only outliers…" She flips a sheet onto its back. "High scores with throwing knives, good choice, bow seems to be another particular talent, decent scores with axes…" She quirks an eyebrow. "Mental exams find you unflappable, average scores on the intelligence exams, nothing impressive but you're no dolt. Pain resistance is… _good enough._ And if course your devotion to the Capitol cannot be called into question."

The last sentence brings about a little warmth in my chest, and for a bizarre instant I am tempted to smile. It's not something I do often. "The Capitol," I say, "Saved me when no one else could. They took me from poverty and allowed me the chance to represent myself in the highest honor this district can offer. May they reign forever."

The Dean smiles and nods. "May they reign forever," she echoes. "Like I said, you're completely devoted. It's an admirable trait." She closes my file and settles it on the desk. "Aella," she continues, "Given your high scores and your flawless disciplinary record, I want to offer you a unique opportunity." She steeples her fingers and leans forward. "You should know," she says, "That completing this task will greatly impact your Standing."

I nod. I don't know what my Standing is, none of us do, but I imagine it is fairly high, given what Vega has just said. Whether or not it is high enough to place me in serious consideration for the Games is something I will find out the day before the Reapings, something I can influence now by accepting this job. "What would you like me to do?" I ask, spine ramrod straight.

"I've chosen you," says the Dean, "to administer Tiberius Masterson's punishment on the grounds of sexual assault of another student, punishment being twenty lashes on the bare back. Effective immediately." She leans back in her chair and fans herself with a piece of paper. "He's in the disciplinary room in the basement," she continues. "Waiting for you."

This is a clear dismissal, and I get to my feet and nod. "Thank you for this opportunity, Dean Vega," I tell her, "I'll make sure the punishment is carried out effectively."

"I'm sure of that," says Vega, reaching for one of the little figurines on her desk and rolling it between her thumb and forefinger. "Thank you for your time."

I nod again, and leave the room. The hallway beyond is empty. At this time of day most students will be in class or in the training gym, perhaps sprinting around the obstacle course outside before the heat becomes too stifling. The hallway is cool and quiet, and I make for the stairs and consider what's waiting for me below.

Tiberius Masterson, sexual assault, twenty lashes. I'm surprised when I realize I'm irritated, actually frowning a bit. I smooth my features and run my fingers through my dark hair. It's the nature of the crime, I decide, rape has always reminded me of what happened to Mother. My hand fists around my hair and I take a deep breath and allow myself to relax, fingers slowly unfurling. A disgusting crime from a disgusting person. Tiberius is loud, brash, vulgar, and now a rapist, and I can't find it in me to be surprised.

The sound of my footsteps reverberates off the walls of the stairwell as I descend. I've never had much reason to spend time in the disciplinary room. Once I escorted Wisteria there when she refused to thank the Capitol after morning meal, but that was a long time ago.

The basement hallway is whitewashed and quiet. _There's no one here but us,_ I think, making my way through several corridors, passing room after empty room until I find the one I want. The little window in the door has been covered with paper, perhaps in an attempt to preserve confidentiality, but rumors fly thick and fast. I'm sure that most of my contemporaries will be hearing about Tiberius soon, if they haven't already. For myself, I don't think I'll add fuel to the fire by disclosing what I'm about to do to him. I am not petty.

I step into the room. The walls are dark grey, the room dimly lit and large. On the far wall is a rack with an array of disciplinary tools, whips and knives and clubs and things I can't quite identify. There is a hose coiled in the corner, snake-like, for washing the blood away when things get messy. In the center of the room, kneeling, with his arms strapped into a stock and his ankles bound together, is Tiberius. His bare back glistens with sweat. When he sees me, his upper lip curls away from his teeth.

"So they sent you, huh, Poyner?" He hacks up a wad of saliva and spits it dangerously close to my sneaker. "Figures. You're the fuckin' drone, right?"

"Hello, Tiberius," I say, crossing the room behind his bound back. He cranes his neck to watch my progress. "I wish we were meeting under better circumstances."

He rattles the manacles holding him in place. I can see, next to his right leg, the drain where I'm sure I'll be washing his blood in minutes' time. "Like I believe _that,_ you fuckin' bitch," he snarls, "You probably get wet from this sort of thing, huh?" Again he rattles the manacles. "Think that if you do this President Venator's gonna come down here and give you the fucking you've always dreamed of?" He grins, eyes glimmering with a sick sort of fear. "The Capitol doesn't give a shit whether or not you whip me, y'know."

I've reached the rack. There's the bullwhip, the cat o' nine tails, the riding crop, the knout, more that I don't know the names for. After a moment I pull the bullwhip from its place, let it unfurl until it drags along the floor. "The Capitol," I say, swiveling to face him, "Abhors unnecessary violence and cruelty. All they want is a peaceful Panem."

Tiberius laughs, a desperate, wheezing cough of a laugh but a laugh all the same. "That's bull and you know it," he says, eyeing the whip in my hand. "They put on the _Games,_ Poyner, they _eat cruelty up."_

I stalk to his back and crack the whip once in the air. Despite himself, he flinches. "Rape is a serious offence," I tell Tiberius' back, "And not one you can talk your way out of. This Center, as well as the Capitol itself, would never condone unprovoked sexual violence of any kind." Again I crack the whip in the air. As I do I see the face of my mother as they forced her down on the side of the road, hear her screaming and sobbing and finally accepting, feel their rough hands holding me back, away, while they all take turns. I'm clutching the whip so hard my hand has gone white. When I crack it in the air for the third time and think, _He's done the same thing to somebody else,_ I find that there is a lightness in me that wasn't there before. No guilt.

"Don't struggle, please, Tiberius," I say, lining up my strike. "I wouldn't want to miss."

I draw my arm back, and then the whip hisses forward and Tiberius screams.

"One," I say.

The red stripe on his back appeared almost as if by magic, like the crayon mark of a child. It weeps blood down his spine as I wind up the second strike and let it fly. Tiberius shudders against his manacles, a litany of profanity spewing from his lips that I am all too happy to ignore. The third strike feels like justice, somehow, as does the fourth. And the fifth. And the sixth.

By strike twenty, Tiberius is unconscious, dangling from the chains around his wrists, back torn and ragged like something abandoned. The room smells like old pennies and urine, from when he lost control of himself around strike twelve. Looking at his limp body should perhaps spark _something_ in me, but all I can muster up is a faint sort of contentment that, again, the Capitol's justice has been done. As it was, now it is.

"Praise the Capitol in the highest," I intone, throwing the bloodied whip at Tiberius' prone feet. "May they reign forever."

Then I turn, and leave him in the bleeding dark.

* * *

 **Nero Ralston, 15**

 **District Two Male**

Romulus is waiting for me where the mercantile district bleeds into the residential one, standing just outside the cast-iron gate of a tiny house with an equally tiny garden. He smiles when he sees me, and waves, and I smile back and hurry to greet him.

"Hey, Rom," I say, coming to a stop beside him, hands in the pockets of my shorts. The heat is intense, almost unbearable, and I rub the back of my neck to get the sweat off.

"H-hello, N-n-nero," Romulus manages, grimacing a bit as he works out my name. He's been getting a lot better, though, when we first met he could hardly say a word without stuttering; now, I've heard him manage a full sentence! He says talking to me really helps.

"H-how was your day?" Romulus continues, leaning against the gate behind him. "Anything interesting?"

"Not really," I tell him, fidgeting from side to side. "I got some bullseyes with throwing knives, that was pretty cool. And I beat out Hannibal in a footrace!" I grin, remembering. "I tried to be a good sport about it but I think he was pretty mad."

"He'll get—get over it," says Romulus.

"Oh! Yeah!" I remember, fishing into my pocket, "I got one of those notes you've been asking me about!"

Romulus' eyes narrow. "You—you did, huh?" he asks, leaning forward, craning his neck. "In the spot we discussed?"

"Sure, it was under the radiator on the second floor." My fingers close around it and I hand it to him. He pulls it away eagerly and stuffs it inside his own pocket without looking at it. "I didn't read it," I assure him, "So you don't have to be embarrassed or anything."

Romulus laughs, his voice almost strained. "I'm not embarrassed, N-nero," he says. "But…"

"I didn't tell anyone." I toss my blonde hair. "I'd never do that, Romulus, you can trust me. Besides, it's only love letters right? It's not _that_ bad."

"O-of course," says Romulus. The sun must be worse for him than it is for me; his collar is damp with sweat. "Thank you again, f-for everything. I'll see you here sometime next w-week?"

"Sure," I tell him, as he peels away from the fence. A droplet of sweat falls from his temple. He flashes me a quick, thin smile. Then he is gone.

I crack my knuckles and pull away from the fence myself, heading towards home. Even in my baggy athletic clothing, the heat seems to be rising with every step. But we're not in the real heat of the summer yet, when sometimes the asphalt will drip and run and cling to the soles of your shoes or your feet if the Peacekeepers catch you and decide they want to be creative. I repress a wince. Peacekeepers kinda scare me sometimes.

Slowly the houses get bigger and bigger, more spread out. Our house is about two miles away from here, and the only reason I make the walk at all and don't take the Rail is because the people at the Center insisted that I have the ability to make walks or runs like this in my sleep. I've been making this walk for three years now, and they were right about that, at least, I am really fast now.

After a while I break into a light jog, mostly just to get home faster. As my feet touch the pavement I think about Romulus. We met last year, and he was always really interested in the Center and what goes on in there. He says his girlfriend works in housekeeping and that he doesn't get to see her much, which is why I'm always carrying notes between them. They're _really_ secretive about it. I've never even seen her, and the location of the note changes every time, and Romulus won't ever let me tell anybody about it. He says that when I'm older and in love, I'll understand.

Around me the houses are now surrounded by grassy gardens with knotted trees and hedge and are fairly far apart and I know I'm almost home. In fact I can see my house a few hundred feet ahead of me, a big sprawling house with multiple stories and an overgrown garden (we Ralstons aren't the best at gardening, honestly) and—a car parked out front? That's weird. The only person we know who owns a car is Aunt Marcia, and she wouldn't exactly be visiting us because she's Head Peacekeeper and she's not allowed.

I slow to a walk and shove my hands in my pockets as I skirt around the car and make for the front door. It's a white car, which means Peacekeepers. Maybe it _is_ Aunt Marcia? She's never visited before, but I guess there's a first time for everything…

When I reach for the doorknob, the door pushes inward with a brush of my fingertips. _Unlocked,_ I think, suddenly nervous without really knowing why. "Hello?" I call, stepping into the hallway. My shoes squeak on the floorboards. "Mom? Dad?"

Movement to my left. I turn, step into the sitting room, and raise my eyebrows. Mom and Dad are sitting on the couch. Mom is wringing her hands; Dad's jaw is clenched and a muscle works in his forehead. Mom flinches when she sees me.

Because of the flinch, the three Peacekeepers standing at the center of the floral pattern on the carpet turn their heads and fix their eyes on me. One of them reaches for the gun resting at his hip. The tall black-haired woman in the center narrows brilliant blue eyes in my direction. "Nero Ralston?" she says.

I blink several times. "What?" I say. "What did I do?"

That is all the confirmation they need. The only man in the group lunges for me, digging his fingers into my forearm and forcing it into the small of my back. I cry out, more shocked than pained, and try to wriggle away from him, but he only digs his fingers more firmly into my flesh. "Hey!" I exclaim, "I didn't _do_ anything, you can't just—"

The male Peacekeeper drags me towards the door and the two women follow suit. " _Mom!"_ I scream, digging my heels into the floorboards, "What are you doing, you can't just let them take me— _Mom, Dad, please!"_ Mom covers her face with her hands. Dad looks away. And then I'm out the door.

I go limp. I'm numb, I feel sick, and I let them muscle me into their waiting car without protesting. There are handcuffs dangling from the ceiling that the male Peacekeeper buckles me into with unwavering fingers. I dangle from my wrists, limp and aching, and one of the women starts the car.

The car purrs underneath me and I'm too out of it to consider that this is the first time I've ever ridden in one. The black-haired woman in the passenger seat has turned around and she eyes me, drumming her fingers against her seat. "Mister Ralston," she says, "Do you know what you've done?"

" _No!"_ I exclaim, tugging against the handcuffs. "I don't know— _I don't—"_

The woman nods, and the man next to me grabs a fistful of blonde hair and yanks my head back until my throat is exposed and I'm facing the gray upholstery of the roof. "This is important, Mister Ralston," says the woman. "Please take this seriously."

 _"I am!"_ I whimper. My heart slams in my chest. My palms are dripping with sweat, despite the cool air inside the car. Tears prick behind my eyes. "I really don't know what I did, ma'am, I swear, _I swear."_

"So," she says, "You _don't_ remember couriering secret messages for the dissidents of this district? Did that slip your mind?" She smiles, thin-lipped. "Don't bother trying to defend yourself. _We_ know what you've done, even if you can't remember."

 _"What?"_ I squawk. "I wouldn't do that, the rebels are _evil,_ everybody knows that!" Again I yank at the handcuffs. "Ma'am, _please!"_ My vision is blurring with tears. "Please," I whisper, "I promise I didn't."

The car stops.

 _They believe me?_ I think. _I'm going home?_ I glance out the window and see that we've stopped at the outskirts of the residential village, a few miles from the border of District Two, just far enough that the houses are too far for us to see. I pant and the handcuffs rattle with every movement of my chest.

Something cool presses up against my temple.

I glance to my right, see the ugly mouth of the gun kissing my hairline, and I scream. I throw myself as far away as the handcuffs will allow, kicking the floor with all the strength I have. Snot streams from my nostrils. _"No no no no no,"_ I wail, _"I didn't do it p-p-p-please I didn't oh Capitol don't kill me_ please."

The man forces me back towards the muzzle of the gun and I wail like an animal and tug on the cuffs until a bead of blood slides down my wrist. "Cool it, kid," he growls, jamming the gun against my skull and what if he pulls the trigger and m _y brains go everywhere and I die oh Capitol—_

"Mister Ralston," says the woman, and I sob and stare, "None of us here want to kill you."

I hiccup. "Then—then _don't,"_ I whisper.

She sighs and strokes the side of her seat, swiping away imaginary particles of dust. "That's all up to you," she says. "If you tell us what we want to know, we'll have no reason to hurt you."

The gun whispers against my skin. "I'll tell you," I blurt, eyes wide and dribbling, "Everything, I'll tell you everything, just— _please don't hurt me."_

The woman smiles. It transforms her face. "Alright," she says, brushing her hair out of her eyes. "First things first. You admit that you've been couriering for rebels."

I take a shuddering breath. "But—" I whisper. "I haven't."

She frowns. "You _haven't_ been delivering messages back and forth from the Betterment Center to a contact on the outside? Our sources are reliable. You've been seen delivering these messages, Nero."

If the terror wasn't choking the humor out of me, I might've laughed. "That's for _Rom,"_ I exclaim, hysteria coloring my words, "It's his _love letters."_

"Rom?" says the woman quickly. "That's his name? Rom?"

"Romulus," I correct. "I don't know his last name, he never said." My wrists ache. "But those weren't—those weren't _bad_ letters, they were just love notes. I promise!"

She quirks an eyebrow. "Did you read them, Mister Ralston?"

I falter. "Well— _no,_ I would never do that to my friend." Another line of blood drips from underneath the handcuffs. "But there's no way they were anything bad," I continue, fumbling over my words. "Romulus wouldn't do something like that."

"Really?" says the woman. "Is it so unlikely a dissident might see a naïve little boy like yourself and think _there's a way for me to reach my contact on the inside, here's how we'll pass messages to each other_?" She adjusts the collar of her uniform. "We have the contact," she adds. "She was one of the students. Not anymore." The woman leans forward, eyes fixed on me. "Now we need the man she was sending her little secrets to," she continues. "We need your Romulus." The man next to me jabs me with the gun and a fresh wave of terror crawls down my spine. "Like I said," she exclaims, "We don't want to hurt you, Mister Ralston. We know your involvement was accidental. But if you won't cooperate, Bristel here will pull that trigger."

I gape. "But I don't _know_ anything," I manage finally.

The woman almost smiles. "Tell us about Romulus," she says. "Tell us everything you know about him. Everything and we'll let you live, despite your transgressions."

I open my mouth, close it again. Romulus— _my friend—_ if I tell them, they'll look for him, they'll maybe find him and kill him and—

I remember the gun against my head. And I tell them everything.

* * *

 **Afton Moreau, 18**

 **District Ten Female**

The muscles of Verity's back shift under my calves and I move with her, inhaling when she inhales, leaning forward when she leans forward, tensing when she flicks her ears and stares for a moment at something on the horizon that only she is aware of.

Every one of her heavy footfalls reverberates up my shins and echoes somewhere in my chest, _thump, thump,_ each step in line with my heartbeat. The heat is unbelievable and I wonder if Verity minds much that I'm sweating on her spine. Every time she shifts my thighs chafe against her coat; every time I readjust myself there is a half-second where I fear that I'm slippery enough to fall from her back. But I'm overthinking things. I've never fallen before.

Beside me, sitting astride Vennie with her fingers tangled in his mane, Matty stares thoughtfully at the fat golden sun sinking with agonizing slowness towards the horizon. "Few more hours of daylight left, I think," she says. "You'd better win this one, Afton, cuz I'm not sure the heat's gonna be worth it."

"I'll win," I tell her, tugging a bit on Verity's reigns to move her closer to Vennie. "When do I not?"

Matty rolls her eyes and grins, sticking her tongue out. "Says the student to the master. Who taught you everything you know, filly, who was the best damn jockey from here to the Capitol?"

"Keyword being _was,"_ I say. We're close enough to touch, and she reaches over and slaps me on the shoulder before nudging Vennie into a trot. I resist the urge to lay a hand over the place her palm connected with my shoulder, to trot up beside her and press our cheeks together, our lips together—no reason to bother, I know she's not interested, even if she's never said so. I hope I never have to hear her say _no._ I might lose it.

I _do_ urge Verity into a trot, but when we're close I stay on my own horse and look at my hands on the reigns instead of at the way her black hair glistens like a snake coiled on a flat rock. Even from here I can hear shouting, whistling, and I know we're close to whatever unofficial patch of land the organizers have hunted down and squared off, far enough away from anything else that the Peacekeepers won't bother breaking it up, will let us sweat ourselves out under the sun while they sit and smoke and drink back down in the Pens.

Matty tenses her thighs and rises from Vennie's back for a moment before settling back down. "Looks like a coupla newbies," she says, shading her eyes from the glare. "Sure you can handle 'em, Afton?"

I roll my eyes. "How many times have we had newbies this season, Matty? How many times have I lost?"

She grimaces. "Blah, blah, I'm Afton Moreau and I'm _suuuch_ a good jockey that I'll never lose even though this is the first racing season I've _ever_ done so well, blah di blah—"

"Can't help but remember that _you've_ never had a perfect season," I remind her.

She glares flatly and says nothing. I'll take that as a victory.

Verity and Vennie slow down as we come up to the crowd. It's not as big of a turnout as the past few races have been; the heat keeps people in their homes with cool rags and closed curtains to keep the sun out. You'd have to be dedicated to come out this far into the flatlands to watch a race, near-suicidal to jockey in one. I'm not suicidal, but I'll be damned if I've come this far only to give up now because of some _heat._

Matty taps me on the shoulder. "I'm gonna head over to Colton to place my bets," she says. "Y'know, I'm almost tempted not to bet on you. Everybody else is going to."

"If you wanna lose," I tell her, "You can do whatever you want."

She grins. "That's the spirit," she says, and turns Vennie in the direction of a tightly-knit throng of people, most mounted, rapidly exchanging betting slips and denarii with sweating hands. I turn the other way, towards the small group of jockeys and their horses. Most I recognize, but there are a few new faces. The horses are tethered to a post someone must have hammered into the clay earlier this morning, before the sun was fully risen, and I slide off Verity's back and tie the familiar knots without thinking much about it. A water trough has been provided for the horses, a bucket for the jockeys. One of the new faces is drinking from it now, and he pulls away and passes it over to me as I walk to him.

"Name's Andrew," he says, as I swill the warm water against my teeth and try to ignore the taste of metal. "You're Afton Moreau, right?"

I put the bucket down and wipe my lips clean with the back of my hand. What I don't wipe away is already drying in the heat. "Yup," I tell him, crossing my arms over my chest. He's slender, has much less muscle than I do. His legs are well-toned and he stands slightly stooped. _He's used to crouching low against his animal,_ I think, observing him, _and he's light and small enough that he won't slow the horse down._

He extends a hand which I shake. _Calloused palm. He's got reign-hands, alright, he's a serious rider._ "Best of luck," he says. "I'm told you're a fierce competitor."

"Fiercer than this lot," I tell him, gesturing towards our competitors. There are a few scowls, but most people just ignore me. Probably because they know I'm right.

Andrew opens his mouth to say more, but a sharp whistle commands our immediate attention. "Jockeys," shouts Sally Cohen from her place on her ancient gelding Majesty. She's been the master of ceremonies for years now, despite never having raced herself. Kohl drips from the sweat streaming from underneath her eyes as she surveys the group of us. "Mount your animals."

Verity, I notice, has already been saddled, most likely by one of the children Sally hires to take care of the little things, like the water troughs and the saddling. I was one of them, once, as was Matty. I don't believe Andrew ever was. _Interloper._

I slip a foot into the stirrup and heave myself onto Verity's back, reaching over her head to untie her from the post. She whickers against my forearm and I pat her broad neck, horse-flesh firm and hot under my hand.

One of the children peels away from the crowd to lead Verity to the starting line. The crowd thins, relegates itself to a spot predetermined to provide the best view of the proceedings. Most will canter alongside the runners to the finish line; those unmounted will do what they can to see from here. I spot Matty in the crowd, and she waves the piece of paper clutched between thumb and forefinger as Vennie paws the earth underneath her. From this distance I can't tell what the paper says, but I'd be shocked if it didn't say _Afton Moreau._ She always bets on me in the end.

The horses are led to a line that has been etched into the clay. I find myself sandwiched between two competitors I'm sure will be no challenge. Andrew is three horses to my right. He rides a gray gelding, I note. He's a lean, powerful animal. Might give him an edge, might not. Still shouldn't be a challenge for Verity. She's a winner.

Sally canters to the front of the line and gives her usual spiel about fairness and the importance of being a good sport. She goes on for a while about what a dear I am, how difficult it appears to be to defeat me, and invites the newcomers to do their best to try. Andrew smirks into his horse's mane. I clutch Verity's reigns a bit tighter.

Finally Sally moves Majesty off to the side and stands in the stirrups, throwing her dark hair back. "Are we _ready!"_ she roars, and the crowd collectively loses its mind.

She nods. "Sounds about right. Now, jockeys." I hunch low in the saddle, tensing my thighs and calves. "The race ends beyond the first cactus," says Sally, "which you can't miss if you keep going straight." Some laughter from the crowd; it's not unheard of for horses to gallop into the mesa and off the unmarked track completely. She clears her throat. "On your mark!" she crows. I risk a quick glance at Andrew and see him straining in the saddle, eyes fixed on the ground ahead of him, clenching his teeth. _He's really serious,_ I think. _But I'll have to disappoint him._

"Get set… _Go!"_

Verity leaps forward at the jab of my heels and we're off. The horse to my left immediately falls behind, the one to my right pulls ahead. I won't bother looking at Andrew; it isn't worth the energy. Instead I lean forward and whisper into Verity's velvet ear, stroke her neck and urge her on, while all the while I jab her in the ribs, over and over.

My horse thunders underneath me and all I can hear is the roar of hooves against earth. My heart hammers; I can hardly breathe. My hair streams behind me, pressed flat against my skull, and the weight of it is so heavy that I wonder for a moment if perhaps that's all the edge Andrew will need, his slender body and his short hair.

The horse to my right rears back, eyes rolling, and we're past them and away, away, and only two left keeping pace with us now, an old challenger I recognize and without even turning to look I know the other is Andrew. I can see the cactus now, a speck in the mesa that grows at an alarming rate. "C'mon, Verity," I murmur, and my words are torn by the wind. _"Faster."_

The other challenger draws back. And it's just me and him, and his horse pulls close to mine and we're neck and neck and when I glance at him he's glaring ahead like all that exists is the road and that cactus. I'm waiting for the moment when his horse begins to slow, to realize it can't keep running like this, can't outstrip my girl.

Instead, it pulls ahead.

My fists tighten on the reigns. _"Fuck,"_ I spit, torturing Verity's ribs with the tips of my toes. She leaps and we're neck and neck again, I could reach out and touch him, and the cactus is there and— _he pulls ahead,_ just a hair, just a footfall, it's hardly fair his horse has a longer neck there's no way—

We thunder past the cactus. I yank on the reigns with trembling hands and Verity shudders to a halt. At once I'm sliding off her back, sprinting towards the woman standing at the finishing line, while Andrew wheels his mount around and grabs Verity's reigns, pulling them both to the side before the other horses start coming in. "Who won?" I gasp, panting, head heavy. _"Who?"_

"Andrew Cloven on Shadow," she says. "By a hair."

I blink. Then I grab her by the shirt, drag her forward. The spectators are galloping in now, and I squeeze her shirt so tightly my fingers ache. " _Bullshit,"_ I snap, "We were neck and neck."

She pulls herself free. "He was ahead," she snaps, taking a step back, "By a hair, and that's enough to win. Don't give me any shit, Moreau."

"Afton." He's behind me, and I whirl around. Andrew looks almost sheepish, standing with his hands in his pockets. "Uh… I'm sorry about your—"

I lunge.

" _Fucker,"_ I snarl, sending an elbow into his face. He goes down with a scream and a spray of warm red, "You fucking cheating bastard, did you pick that horse because of its long fucking neck because that's the only reason you won, goddammit—"

Hands are pulling me up and away from the teenager cowering in the clay with both hands covering his bleeding nose. I fight against them for a moment, opening and closing fists that I itch to send into his smug fucking face. He peers at me through his fingers and his eyes are huge and black. _Bastard._

I don't realize its Matty pulling me away until we've broken from the crowd and I recognize her voice. " _Everdeen,_ Afton," she's saying, "You need to learn to control that temper, I mean you could've broken that guys _nose."_

I consider pushing her away and sprinting after him again, but instead I just wipe the blood off my elbow with my palm. "My perfect season," I mutter, "Bastard ruined it."

"I know," says Matty, stroking my back, and for a terrible moment I think I see something like fear in her eyes, or maybe pity. "Oh, Afton, I know."


	6. Twist and Shout

**Haha, okay, maybe twice a week was a bit of a stretch. But I'll still try to make it happen! Never give up and all that.**

 **Anyway, here's the next chapter, enjoy everybody!**

* * *

 _ **Pre-Reapings, Districts Six and Twelve**_

* * *

 **Sadie Forde, 18**

 **District Six Female**

Before me the block stretches on and on, endless rows of crumbling houses and weed-choked brittle patches of earth before them seeming to continue farther than I could hope to walk. But I've been walking for ten minutes now, and I know this grid, and I know that sooner or later I'll come across my own house with its own rusted fence and hard plastic children's toys scattered on the lawn, and I'll be home.

I'm not the only walker. Four or five others have come from the nearest railway station, mostly my age or younger—students, probably, like myself. I get a better grip on my heavy shoulder bag as we trudge in tandem to our destinations, and piecemeal the other students peel away from the group and vanish into the grid until I'm walking alone.

Just as well. I like it better that way.

The adults will come later, when dusk just about creeps over the horizon, from factories and communications towers, sometimes from the other end of District Six, and they'll ride the stinking railway for minutes or hours to get back home. My ride is twenty minutes of sweaty, crowded horror, with me gritting my teeth to quell the rising panic in my chest until I want to scream along with the whistle. Even thinking about the railway is making me nervous. I lower my eyelids and continue on.

I'm close. My shadow is long in front of me, lanky and tall, almost masculine. The sinking sun is hot on the back of my neck but the breeze cools the sweat with a whisper and a promise of winter, months away and still enough of a threat that despite myself I start to feel cold. As I rub on my arms to warm myself, I catch sight of my house at the far end of the block, and when I see my house I see a man waiting by the nearest streetlight, arms crossed over his chest. A hood has been pulled far over his face, and what I can see of it seems too pale and smooth to be flesh at all. _Masked,_ I think, and my heart falters. _Oh, no._

I keep walking. I keep walking, and as I do he jerks away from the streetlight and approaches, his gait swaying and casual, and I know that he's here for me. He tilts his head back and the mask is illuminated more fully. White, blank face, featureless but for the holes where his dark eyes peer through and for the twisting grinning smile that has been cut into the plastic. _Other Guy,_ I realize, recognizing the mask, _He's with the Other Guys._

"Hello, Sadie Forde," he says.

I grind to a halt. His mask grins and stares at me, and I grit my teeth and stare back with narrowed eyes. "Hello, Other Guy," I say, while the breeze toys with my long hair.

He taps a finger against the hard plastic on his face. "I'm going to be blunt with you," he says. "Since you already know who I'm with and I'm assuming you have decent enough awareness of the other big gangs as well."

"The Sleepers and Howling Hurricane," I say, crossing my arms over my chest. "Everybody knows that."

"Sure," he says. "Well. It's been looked into, and the Other Guys are extending a job offering your way."

"Absolutely not," I tell him. I don't even need to think.

I can see him blinking through the eye holes in his mask. "I wouldn't refuse just yet, Sadie," he says. "You haven't listened to my pitch, and I can promise you that it's convincing."

I steal a glance towards my house. The lights are on and there is movement behind the curtains, and my heart aches to be home, to be warm and safe, and I wish that this conversation was not happening and that the Other Guys had never heard of Sadie Forde, because I want nothing to do with this, and nothing to do with them. "I don't care how convincing it is," I tell him. "It won't convince me."

"Don't be so sure," says the Other Guy. He waves a gloved hand in the direction of my house. "Let's walk."

I consider refusing, but I'm well aware that for all his willingness to talk things out, he's probably got a knife or several stashed on his person, and for all the talk that the Other Guys are at least civil, he'll bleed me if he has to. I fall into step beside him, hating him for the intrusion. I wonder if he can tell.

"Money," he says.

When I don't respond, he continues. "We know that you have a large family and we know none of you make enough money to support it for long," he says. "You've held seven part time jobs since you were twelve years old, none of which have lasted for more than a year. Right now you're jobless and have already taken far too much tesserae to risk taking any more." He shrugs a shoulder. "The Other Guys will never be forced to let you go because they can't pay your salary. And you'll be making a hell of a lot more than you'd be making anywhere else."

We pass my house. I almost turn towards the fence and my feet falter underneath me. In the window I can see a couple members of my family, my cousin Austin regaling his sister Harley with some tall tale, and my heart aches for home. Feeling clumsy, I turn back to the Other Guy, staring with ill-disguised loathing at the asphalt below us.

"The job you've been scouted for is very simple," he continues. "There's hardly any risk. The worst that'll happen to you in Rhodes is that you'll be expelled, and the Other Guys will find something else for you as soon as possible."

I recognize the name of my school with a jolt of nausea. "Rhodes," I say, glaring at him. "What's happening in Rhodes?"

"You know," he says. "What's happening at all the other schools. We need a few good pushers—"

"No way," I interrupt. "No way. I'm not pushing _anything_ at school. They're _kids,_ Capitol's sake, you want me to get kids hooked on keht?"

"No," he says at once. "Not keht. Just morphling."

 _That's not much better,_ I think, but I keep it to myself. The Other Guy spins us back around with a flick on my shoulder, and again we amble towards my house. "You have no idea the kinds of opportunities we'd give to you," says the Other Guy. "Money, power, relative safety. All for a job you could do in your sleep."

"A job," I tell him, "That I'm not going to do."

He sighs. Through the mask, it sounds like the rustle of falling leaves. "You're not giving me much of a choice here," he says, and for a brief moment I think he'll pull a knife and gut me, right here on the street in front of my house. But he just stops in place, and I stop too and watch him with wary grey eyes while he drums his fingers against his grinning mask.

"We know what your family is," he says, finally.

I know that my expression doesn't change, that I continue looking at him with detached disinterest, while my stomach churns and my palms sweat. "Huh?" I manage, raising my eyebrows. "What do you mean?"

"That's not gonna work," says the Other Guy. "We scouted you _because_ of this, Sadie, because we know who they are. Who _you_ are." He leans a bit closer, and his mask is demoniac. "Your parents and aunt, they have no history in District Six. They just _appeared_ here, didn't they? So we looked into it, looked into their past." I can feel his breath on my face. "Authorized transfer," he says. His voice is hypnotic. "From the Capitol. There are orders in the Justice Building to keep an eye on them, even now. Worried they'll try something else." He jabs a finger in the center of my chest. "Capitolian rebel _scum,"_ he says, "And they sent them here. It's almost ironic." He pulls away from me and I release a breath I didn't know I was holding. "Who were they related to?" he asks. "It doesn't say in the files. But they must have been related to someone important, or they would have been executed."

 _My mom and her sister,_ I think, _Daughters of Peacekeeper General Wakely,_ but I shake my head instead of answering. The Other Guy shrugs. "Doesn't matter," he says. "If we leak the fact that your parents and aunt were Capitolian rebels publicly, the Peacekeepers will _have_ to take action. Maybe they'll relocate them again, if whoever sent them here is even in power anymore, or maybe they'll just give them the executions they deserved in the first place." Sunlight glints off his white plastic mask. "Your choice, Sadie Forde. We can give you a new lease on life. Or we can take everything away from you."

For a moment I stand in front of him, weak with horror, mind bleating variations of _How do they know, how did they find out,_ and none of the answers are ones that I like. _They_ do _know,_ I manage finally, _They know where my family is from and they know about their_ stupid _little rebellion that didn't even work and maybe they don't know that I'm the granddaughter of the Peacekeeper General but it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter._ I want to cry, to scream, but I'm stoic, even in the face of _this. They'll do it,_ I realize, _He's not bluffing, they'll really do it._

It's not a choice. He knows it isn't a choice. I'll drug every kid in Rhodes with morphling myself, if that's what it'll take.

So when I say "I'm in," my voice doesn't waver. My hands don't tremble when we shake, and I don't break down when he walks away.

Whatever it takes. Whatever it takes. _Whatever it takes._

* * *

 **Austin Tyreston, 13**

 **District Six Male**

Oh, man. Oh _man._ Oh man oh man oh man.

"Bethan!" I call, clinging to the side of the comms tower with my eyes shut tight and my palms slippery with sweat, "I've made a _huge_ mistake!"

Somehow I can hear her laughing over the roar of the wind against my ill-fitting clothing and the strange wailing sound that I'm making to drown out the fact that I'm _real_ scared here, oh _geez_ why did I think this was a good idea? I shuffle my feet against the metal landing below me and keep wailing—maybe if I wail for long enough a Peacekeeper will come save me? Well, probably not because the Peacekeeper will actually probably teach me a lesson I won't forget by beating the ever-loving crap out of me the moment I'm on the ground again, but I'll be on the ground again, right? That's gotta count for something.

Far below me, Bethan is shrieking with laughter. "Everdeen, Austin," she shouts, "I can't believe you actually did it! You _hate_ heights!"

 _"You dared me!"_ I howl against the wind, "You _knew_ I was gonna have to do it! Why, Bethan, why?" The laughter from below continues. "Bethaaaaan," I moan, "You gotta help me, you gotta save me! Get somebody! _Anybody!"_

"Just open your eyes, Austin!" she calls back. "You're not even that high up! Just climb on down the ladder and c'mere so I can slap you for being a baby about this."

I whimper and crack open an eyelid. The comms tower is a metal frame under my clutching hands, with gaps big enough to slip through if I'm not careful— _oh no, I could slip through any of these gaps if I'm not careful._ I shriek and take a step back, which brings me towards the edge of the metal landing and certain death—oh _man_ I am in _big trouble._

"Augh!" I scream, and throw my butt down onto the landing, curling up into a shaking ball. I can see Bethan dancing around thirty feet below me, a blonde vaguely humanoid blur, and I wish that my glasses hadn't broken years ago but also if I could really see how far up I am I might die right here and now. To distract myself I hum a few snatches of the Capitol anthem, which doesn't help _at all._ "Bethaaaan!" I try again, " _Please please please_ get some help—lunch is gonna end soon and I'm gonna be _screeewed_ if I'm not back in time, Mr. Wheeler's gonna _murder_ me!"

I think she maybe sticks her tongue out at me. "You are _ruining_ all the respect I had for you for climbing up there in the first place!" she calls. "But _fine,_ Austin ya baby, I'll get some help. I can't _believe_ you…" And she's sprinting back in the direction of the fence we snuck through to get out here in the first place.

Being alone up here is even worse than having Bethan laughing at me from below, and I hum even more wildly and rock back and forth on my butt, trying to think happy thoughts, like how when I get home Mom said we might have enough money for her to buy some fruit from market, and fruit is so good… Mmm, if she gets oranges I'll be the happiest person in the house, probably. Or apples. Or grapes or like any fruit. I only had grapes once in my life before and if we have enough money to have grapes again it's gonna be _amazing._

Up here the wind is actually cold, and I grimace and pull my jacket a bit closer to my shoulders. Mom always makes me wear a jacket, even when summer only _just_ ended, but I'm glad I have it now. Oh man, I never should've come up here in the first place. _Terrible_ idea. Even if it was a dare…

There's a hint of sound from below, and I risk a peek to see two blurs sprinting back towards the tower. One of them is definitely Bethan, and the other is hopefully here to rescue me. "Hello?" I call, looking at my worn shoes, anything but the drop underneath me, "Please tell me you're here to save me."

"She's here to save you!" Bethan yells. "Sit tight, kiddo, she's coming up!"

I scoot a few feet away from the ladder, being sure not to scoot so far that I scoot straight through one of the gaps in the tower, therefore scooting to my death. I grit my teeth and rub my shoulders as quickly as I can as a mousey-brown head of hair peeks over the lip of the landing, and then a very familiar fringe, and cold grey eyes that I know at once because they're the same color as mine, and I'm nearly crying with relief when I call out "Sadie! You came for me!"

There are bags under my cousin's eyes as she crawls onto the landing and settles on her knees, long brown hair whipping around her head in the breeze, jacket practically lifting off her brawny shoulders. "Sadie!" I gasp, "Bethan dared me to climb up here and I did it but now I'm freaking out because I don't think I can get down and I don't wanna die up here, Sadie, I'm super scared." I'm babbling. "Mom said she was gonna buy fruit now that you're bringing home so much extra money and I don't wanna miss it oh _geez_ I really don't wanna die."

"You're not gonna die, Austin."

She shuffles closer and I clutch at the front of her jacket, staring into her eyes and hopefully her soul so she can't lie to me. "Promise?"

She nods. "I promise," she says, twirling one of my blonde curls around her finger. "I've got a plan."

"Oh thank the Capitol," I blurt. "What is it?"

In response she shucks off her jacket and swivels so I'm facing her back. "Arms around my neck," she orders, and I do what she says and whimper nervously to myself as she ties my arms in place. "There now," she says, "Just clutch with your knees and you won't slip off."

"Are you sure you can handle both of us?" I ask her, as she moves towards the ladder.

"I'm sure," says Sadie. "I'm strong, right?" She swings over the lip of the landing and I gasp, squeezing her ribs with my knees as tightly as I can.

"Right," I sob into her hair, "Super strong, and tough."

"Well, there you are, then," she says, grunting softly. Her body moves underneath me and I can feel every step against the rungs of the ladder. _Yikes._ "I've got you, Austin, there's nothing to be afraid of."

I babble nonsense into my cousin's ear until I feel her foot falling on solid ground. Then I whoop, claw at the knots holding me against her back, and tumble to the ground. She turn with a raised eyebrow as I hoot and thrust my fist towards the sky. " _Yeah!"_ I exclaim, "You did it Sadie, you saved me!"

She smiles, but her eyes are flat. "You're not going to do that again, are you?" she says. "You and Bethan shouldn't even be leaving school grounds during your lunch break."

"We won't do it again," interjects Bethan sweetly, grabbing my arm and knuckling my hair. "So sorry I had to pull you out of class, Sadie, but I wasn't gonna get him down myself."

"I understand," says Sadie, "But I'm not joking, you two. Don't come out here again." Bethan nods and scampers back towards the fence, and I move to follow her, but I change my mind and hug Sadie around the middle instead. She strokes the small of my back and sighs.

"Sadie?" I say, pulling away so I can see her face. "Why've you been so tired lately? You look worn out."

She looks away. "I'm not," she says, even though I can see the bags under her eyes, the lines on her face. "I'm fine, Austin."

I consider this. "Okay Sadie," I say. "I love you."

She smiles. "I love you too," she says, giving me a quick squeeze. "Go back to class, now, and _don't_ let me catch you out here again. Alright?"

"Alright! I'll see you at home!" I call, and scamper away, back towards the fence. As I crawl through the hole I can feel her tired eyes on my back, just for a moment. Then I'm through, and she's gone.

* * *

 **Margery Devereux, 15**

 **District Twelve Female**

While Forrest reclines on my bed with a thick grin plastered across his face, I push my sheets away from myself and slide out of bed. His eyes rake across my skin as I cross the room and pick up the packet of chocolates he bought for me, chocolates he assured me were Capitol-made and shipped to Twelve specifically so he could give them to me. I cradle them in my arms and bring them back to the bed, sliding under the covers and wriggling closer to Forrest. He wraps a broad arm around my waist and pulls me snug against him as I pick up the first chocolate and pop it into my mouth. _Nougat,_ I think, and there's a thrill of pride for even knowing what that word means, _Pretty good. Not the best I've ever had, but pretty good._

Of course I have to watch my figure. Every chocolate that I eat is a hundred calories or so that I'll have to work off, or it'll come back to haunt me in the form of fat that'll weigh me down and make me uglier than I already am. I pinch the fat at my stomach and frown, pushing the chocolates away. I've changed my mind. Chocolate isn't anything to get fat over.

Forrest is pressing his lips against my shoulder. "You're beautiful," he murmurs, and his breath is hot on my skin. I almost jump him again right here and now, but instead I settle against his chest and smirk up at the ceiling.

"Oh, I know," I tell him, tossing white-blonde hair over his dark skin. "You don't deserve me." He laughs at that, and his lips are hungrier on my neck.

"Maybe not," he rumbles, and the vibrations make me shiver. "I'll take what I can get." He reaches up and takes a handful of my chest in one hand, squeezing enough to make me squeal.

I roll off of him and swaddle the sheets around my body. "Tell me more," I breathe. "Tell me more about how beautiful I am."

He rolls onto his side. His eyes are almost black and they shine as he looks at me. "Margery Devereux," he says, and the way he says my name is erotic, everything about him is. "You are, by far, the most beautiful girl in school."

I nod. "More."

"That figure," he says, "That _body,_ you drive everybody crazy just walking in the halls like you do." His grin splits his face. "I don't know why you chose me, but I'll roll with it, I can tell you."

As much as I want to remind him that I haven't _chosen_ him, that by tomorrow it'll be some other boy I'm hunting down after class, I want him to keep going much more. "Oh, Forrest," I breathe, sidling closer, "You have a way with words. More, please."

He groans. " _Margery,"_ he says, "I can say it over and over again and it'll still be true. You're beautiful. Really beautiful. Your face, even, your skin, everything about you is just—you're perfect," he decides, attention rapt on my face.

I lean over and kiss him on the lips. He tastes like candy, and my eyelashes flutter at the thought. When I pull away, he's breathing like he just won a race. I tend to have that effect on people.

I get out of bed again and cross over to my full-length mirror, angling my body to get a good look at it all. Legs too small, feet too small, torso too short, breasts asymmetrical, hair too long, someone needs to cut it— _ugh._ I suck air in through my clenched teeth, narrowing my blue eyes at my own reflection. She seems to be laughing at me through cruel, thin lips, whispering _ugly_ against the ice-glass insides of the mirror, fogging it with her cold breath.

I toss my hair and turn my back to the mirror, swaying in place and then dropping to the carpet and slowly working my way back up. Forrest whoops from the bed, and I grin over at him, appreciating his blindness. All boys are blind. Poor stupid boys. When they groan against me and swear that I'm a beauty, I'm lovely, precious, the lies feel good and I let them go on and on.

I sashay my way towards him and then pull back and dance back to the mirror, wiggling my too-long toes and blowing kisses. "Let me put on a show," I tell him throatily. "Watch what I can do." He's interested, I can tell from the way his eyes sparkle. I strike a pose, one creamy hand on one slender hip, and purse my lips.

The song pours from my throat like milk from a pitcher, thick and smooth, and for all my flaws I've always been decent at this, at least, at singing. Forrest leans forward while I sing, raising his eyebrows when I hit a particularly high note, smiling very slightly. When I'm done I'm suddenly exhausted, and collapse onto the bed in a heap, smirking when he breaks into a cheer and claps loudly enough that maybe, somewhere else in the house, my mother can hear me successfully impressing a boy. _I_ can _do it, mother,_ I think, skin crawling just to think of her, _not everyone thinks I'm as hideous as you do._

"I didn't know you had such an incredible voice," says Forrest, rubbing a strand of my white-blonde hair between his thumb and forefinger. "I'd never heard you sing."

"You just weren't listening then," I sniff, because I really do sing very, very often in school, in every situation I think a song could conceivably work. There were other girls proud of their singing abilities in years past, but they've dwindled every year that I continue to flourish. _Just like they should,_ I think, smoothing the sheets underneath me, _there's no point competing with me when I'm clearly the best._

The ache between my thighs has cooled into disinterest. Suddenly the room is stiflingly hot, the bed too small for both of us. The idea of his broad smiling face pressed against my own is not as intoxicating as it once was. Moodily I fetch the chocolates and slide into bed beside him, slapping his hand away when he reaches for one.

He seems to have senses my sudden shift in mood. "Uh, Margery?" he says. "Are you okay?"

I swirl the fruit-flavored center of one of the chocolates against my teeth, blink several times, and say, "I think you should go."

He pulls back. "What?" He frowns, shifts under the sheets. "Margery. Did I do something wrong?"

I yawn and settle back against the pillows. "No," I tell him, "But I'm getting bored now, and I want you to go. It's not that hard to understand."

Slowly he gets out of bed, starts pulling clothing on. "Uh… When can I see you again?"

I consider it. "Probably not ever," I tell him. "I think I'm going to move on. What do you think about Glenn Applewood? He's Seam, which means he's poor and probably beneath me, but those _pecs…"_

Forrest takes a step back. "Are you joking?" he says, disgust creeping over his face. "Margery, what the hell?"

I flutter my lashes in his direction. "Still here, are we? What about _bored_ didn't you get?" I waggle my fingers at him. "Tata, Forrest, it was fun but not the best I've ever had. That would probably be Buck Meadows. Shame he turned out to be one of those types that sleeps with women _and_ men, the freak."

Forrest opens his mouth as if to speak, and seems to think better of it, hurrying from the room still half-undressed. I smile at his hasty retreat, but it's not much of a smile. I thought I'd feel better with him gone, but now the room feels almost cold. I huddle underneath the sheets and chew methodically on another chocolate, wondering how quickly my body will convert it to fat, and for a moment I don't even care.


End file.
